


The Soul of Genius

by LokiDoki221



Category: The Man From U.N.C.L.E. (2015)
Genre: Asperger Syndrome, BPD, Childhood Memories, Intermittent Explosive Disorder, M/M, Neurodiversity, Psychological Trauma
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-07-14
Updated: 2016-07-14
Packaged: 2018-07-15 09:32:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 932
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7217077
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LokiDoki221/pseuds/LokiDoki221
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When you're ranked at the level of International Mastermind in chess, the word 'genius' is something you come to hear often. To Illya, genius is denial: denial of self, of panic attacks and night terrors and rage, but also of passion, love... lust.</p><p>The KGB can play with your mind if you're with them for too long. Illya has some lessons to unlearn, and perhaps some new ones to receive, courtesy of Napoleon Solo.</p><p>-o-o-o-</p><p>Illya's damaged. Napoleon's still going to love the hell out of him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Soul of Genius

**Author's Note:**

> So this is the first chapter of my first multi-chapter story, and it's short and not hugely exciting, I know, but it sets the scene. I really want this story to be something good, so I really, really hope you like it.
> 
> \- Lo

_"No great mind has ever existed without a touch of madness."_ \- Aristotle  


\-------------------------------------------------

_Illya Kuryakin_  
_Date of Birth: July 25, 1931_  
_Place of Birth: Moscow_  
_Country of Origin: Russia_

_Combat Experience: Russian sambo champion RNS 1953, Judo 4th Dan_

_Intelligent Training: Surveillance cert, K1 level, ......_

_Psychological Profile: B3 Volatile personality disorder, APA, associated with disturbed childhood, E1 Oedipus complex_

_Other Skills / Knowledge: Power Boat Champion (Silver medal 1958); Chess IM – Elo rating 2401_

Illya Kuryakin lived with the knowledge that there was something wrong with him, with his mind. He lived with it when the night terrors came, when the red mist settled behind his eyes, when the black dog threatened to bite. Every day was a minefield, a battleground. It was what made him so good at his job: he'd never had predictability, stability, never truly relaxed. What could be better for a spy?

They came for him when he began to play chess. The school had run it as a lunchtime activity, and encouraged by a teacher, he went. For the first three weeks he only watched, picking up on the movement of each piece and the strategies played by each boy. On their fourth meeting the teacher invited him to play, and he had sat, youngest and smallest of all of them, and he had played. And won. It did not take long for Illya to beat each and every one of his opponents, including the teacher in charge. Not long after he began to win the teacher had appeared at his tenement block, calling for Mrs Kuryakin. She had gone downstairs and left him with strict instructions not to follow nor to touch the soup she had on the stove. He watched them talk heatedly from the window, and then the teacher had left. His mother had returned and looked at him, hands on her hips.

'Illya, why does this man tell me he thinks you are a genius?'

Nobody had been more shocked by that statement than Illya, whose eyes widened to saucers. He had shrugged in response. It was never a good idea to say to much at home. Better to be seen and not heard. In fact, better to be invisible.

She had looked at him suspiciously, and that night he didn't look up from his bowl as they ate their supper.

Two days later the man appeared. He wore a well-tailored three-piece suit with a tie and hat and shiny shoes. He knocked on the door of the tenement, and Illya, home alone, leaned out of the window to see him.

'Kuryakin?' The man called up.

Illya had jumped back inside and gone to sit on the pile of newspaper and rags that made his bed. He didn't know who this man was, but smartly dressed men were never a good sign in this end of the city. Mama was going to kill him when she got back.

To his surprise, his mother had let the man in willingly when she returned five minutes later.

'Illya,' she had snapped. 'Come here.' He had done as he was bidden, as was always best. 'This man has come to take you to a special school for boys outside the city. You will go with him.'

Unsure how to react, Illya had to looked to the stranger with suspicious eyes.

'Your mother is right, Illya. At the school I am taking you to, there will be boys much like you. Intelligent young men. Pillars of our society. Great thinkers and fighters. You must come with me. Do you understand?'

He didn't. He didn't know what it meant to be a pillar, and he really wasn't sure he was much of a thinker, and he certainly wasn't a fighter. He was the smallest in his class. All the same he nodded, and at the command of his mother pulled his coat on.

'Does he have many belongings we shall need to take?' the stranger had asked.

His mother had laughed at that, and gestured to their one room.

'He is the only thing I have, and the only thing he has are the clothes on his back.'

The stranger had reacted to that statement by nodding curtly and instructing Illya to say goodbye to his mother, which he did with little ceremony. He didn't know that would be the last time he saw her.

The man lead Illya to a large, shiny black car, and opened the back door. Illya looked up at him expectantly.

'Get in,' the man instructed, not unkindly. Illya nodded, and did as he was told. The smartly dressed man climbed in after him and shut the door, sitting opposite Illya. He rapped his knuckles against the reinforced glass panel behind his head, and the car pulled away from the tenement and out of the ghetto. A large man sat in the seat next to Illya, in a similar suit to the smartly dressed man, the buttons of his waistcoat straining around his large gut. 

'He's very small,' said the large man. Illya couldn't help thinking that most people probably looked small when you were that size.

The smartly dressed man shrugged. 'By the smell of that room, he lives off cabbage soup. We'll feed him. He'll grow. And anyway, it's his brain they've taken him for.'

Illya sat and listened to them talking as though he wasn't there, righteous indignation muted by the knowledge that when you were poor and scrawny and lived on the bad side of the city this was your lot.

'What's his name again?' the large man asked.

'Kuryakin. Illya.'


End file.
